SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa

6 Survey Results
124
Figure 68. Poverty level per household based on Peasant Farming Approach (only agricultural income is
accounted for)
Under the PF approach, 79% of the farms fall
below the Extreme (Food) Poverty Line, meaning
that these farm households are “food poor”.
However, it should be stressed that only income
the household gets from the agricultural production
is considered, and no other income sources were
integrated into the computation. The latter implies
that that most of the household cannot sustain their
consumption based on their agricultural production
alone (even when relying on the village-level
arrangements to secure labour and other inputs),
and thus, these farm households depend on other
income sources for their self subsistence.
The poverty level per farm type is illustrated
in Figure 69 for the Peasant Farming approach.
To recapitulate, farm type (FT) 1 to 5 are located
in the Northern districts of Bombali and Tonkolili
and their crop orientation extends from rice only
to a combination of rice and other food crops
and non-cash tree crops to only non-cash or
subsistence tree crops. Farm types 6 to 8 are those
located in the east and their crop orientation
moves from highly diversified (with FT 6 and 7
cultivating cash and non-cash tree crops, upland
and lowland rice, and other food crops) to farms
of type FT8 largely under tree crop production
(mainly cash crop).
Figure 69 shows that the farm types situated
mainly in the Northern region with production
orientation on self sufficiency and without cash
crops are receiving income from agriculture that is
not sufficient to fulfil their self subsistence needs.
On the other hand, farms engaged in cash tree
cropping are better positioned to cover the basic
food needs. These results also suggest that farms
with bigger area per household in the Eastern
districts do cover more of their self-sufficient
needs than farm households with smaller
disposable area in the Northern districts. Figure
68 also shows that below 2 acres of available
land per household unit the vast majority of the
farm types are extremely poor. However, farm
types with cash crop orientation disposing of
more than 2 acres per household unit fall above
the Extreme (Food) Poverty Line. This supports the
idea that land availability and product orientation
(diversification strategies) are relevant issues to be
considered by the policy in the study area.
Thus, both the farm crop orientation and the
size do play an important role in the food security
of the households. However, the decision to
alter the underlying crop mix is not directly in
the hands of farms. Clearly, the agro-ecological
setting does not allow for the extensive cultivation